Our Day at Pump It Up!

What can I say about today's event?

Taylor and I went to Pump It Up! for a moms event. Overall, she had a really good time and wasn't quite ready to leave. Me...overall I left happy but there were some stressful moments within our 90 minutes of playtime.

We arrive, check in, get our nametags and pay. Get Taylor's shoes off and I suppose I expected way too much from her because normally she's off running around when we go there for birthday parties. Today was a bit different. The last time we were at PIU was for Jackson's 5th birtday in September and I suppose it's different seeing your big brothers and his friends running around and having a dedicated adult answer to your every whim than going with mom, no brothers and kids who you only have seen occasionally. What was I thinking?!?!?! OF COURSE she'd be a bit skiddish. But we press through.

Anyway, after about 10-15 minutes of sitting back and coaxing, Taylor finally decides that she'll stop being a cling-on and venture off. She saw the other kids (older and younger) sliding on the 2 big slides and bouncing in the other bounce houses and running around having fun. So she tried her very best to get me to up the slide with her. I wanted to see if she could do it herself, afterall, she's almost 3, she plays and climbs at the park like a champ and frankly...I didn't have my shoes off yet. So she gets up to the top of the big slide following the "big girls" (they were older 3s, kiddos who had been there before and 4 year olds). Gets to the top and FREAKS OUT! She's screaming and crying and won't go down by herself. So I get my shoes off, climb up there and set her in my lap and take her down. She wants to go again but wants me to take her. So I go up with her and she wants to sit with me. I don't put her onto my lap but instead put her between my legs and pushed her down the slide...she LOVED it! Then I came down.

Forward about 30-35 minutes, and she's running around and having a good time. She's still checking in with me every so often but at least I am able to carry on some decent conversations with my mom friends without having a cling-on yelling "mommy mommy mommy" every 10 seconds. I get her into another bounce house where she started warming up to others. Then it's time for the big slide again (her choice NOT mine) so she gets up there, this time taking a sliding mat with her. Makes it all the way over to the edge and FREAKS OUT again! I get up onto the slide from the bottom and try and coax her down. No dice! She's not going for it and she's not budging! Jenny and her daughter Keira come up on the slide and Jenny asks Taylor if she'd like to slide down with Keira. Through tears and choking up Taylor says yes and the two girls come whooshing down. Hee hee, Jenny did have to push Taylor down though because she wasn't moving on her own.

This brings us up to 50 minutes into our play session and Taylor is very comfortable going up the slide herself but still not too sure about coming down. Keira tried to get Taylor to slide down with her again but she wasn't having any of it. Here is a small video of her sliding with Katrinka (Alicia's mom) because she wasn't going to make it down on her own.


Finally, one hour and 10 minutes into our play session, Taylor overcame her ultimate fear...I think something clicked with her that she could navigate the slide and the other bounce houses after she went through the obstacle course on her own because here's a TOTALLY different girl sliding down the slide.


We stayed for the full 90 minutes of our allotted jump time and Taylor warmed up so much that she and her new friend Jade ran around following each other up and down the slide. Listen to those squeals of delight!


All in all, a good day and thanks to my friends in Meetup Moms of Tucson, both Taylor and I walked out of there with smiles on our faces instead of tears!

Visiting Bok Bok Today

Today before Pump It Up! with my moms group I took Taylor to see my grandma. The kids call her Bok Bok. She is my dad's mom. So we got to visit with both Papa (my dad) and Bok Bok today. We hadn't been to her house in a long time (Bad Lisa!) Taylor gave Bok Bok 2 Red Delicious Apples which she loves. We knew we hadn't been over in a while because the last time we were over there, the table was right at Taylor's eye line if not at her forehead. Now she's a full head taller than the table. Of course Grandma knows how to get to Taylor...feed her fortune cookies. Too cute and enjoy the show!

Night time Swooshing or Swishing?

I decided to FINALLY attempt to use the video capture button of our Casio Exilim camera. I must say it's mighty cool! I captured a pretty decent video of the boys taking care of their teeth. I still don't quite understand why they have so many bad teeth and soft tooth enamel but they actually DO brush in the morning and at night AND they even swish (or "swoosh" as Jackson would say) with mouthwash. It's kind of strange that my voice sounds a bit deeper than I think it normally sounds. Have fun watching.

Organization (slight) will set you free

This Friday I'm going scrapbooking w/my moms group and following my normal "prep" work for the cropping events I go too I started to organize all of the photos and supplies for the album(s) I want to work on for the night. This starts about 1 week before the cropping event. So last night I got all of my cropping supplies and album and pictures put away. Today, I'm working on miscellaneous photos and putting them away as well. It is so freeing!!! I feel like I have all of the photos I need to start (hopefully finish) the numerous albums I want to create without having to order more pictures. :-) I'm looking at this week as an opportunity to get all of the pictures out of the boxes/containers out of the garage and FINALLY back into the house and into proper storage.

Pictures from December 2008

Yes, I'm tardy uploading pictures from some of our December activities. In fact, I think I need to still upload some from November as well as from January 2009. Hee hee, well here's a glimpse into what we did in December. I'll start there because that's where I am in uploading the photos to Winkflash. ;-)

Tony is getting excited about the score. It was COLD on this night of the Duel in the Desert UA Football game against ASU. Oh well! We are diehard UA fans and braved the cold with our friends.


What more can I say...Our UA college students LISTEN sooooooooooo well!





Tony took each boy to the Cardinal Football Games this season. They both had a blast. This is Anthony's second game. The boys saw great games where the Cardinals won. They got to hang out with dad and they got toys from the Todd McFarlane store. (I think that was the best part of the trip for the little boys).


Pre-Christmas Fun: Setting up the tree. While I was working Tony and the kids decorated the tree. Once I was finished we took pictures of the kids in front of it. I think the best part of this Christmas season is that all the kids helped in putting up the tree AND the ornaments were EVENLY placed!


Woohoo! The kids get to tackle dad after laboring over the tree. Even I got in on some picture action with my munchkins.

Miss Taylor holding the star tree topper. She was very proud holding that start above her head.

Jackson with the star tree topper, he looks very enthusiastic! This is his "I'm bored" look.

Anthony with the star tree topper. He was too cool to hold the tree topper above his head. Hee hee, 2nd grader!

February Already?!?!?!?!?

I blink and we are into February. I can't believe it. Our lives have been constant and non-stop. It's everyday life (work, school, activies, etc.) but it's those activies and "etc." that have been the most fun for our family.

We had a few milestones: Taylor totally and completely officially pottytrained! I LOVE not having to carry a diaper bag where ever we go. Although I do keep a spare change of clothes in the car. Another HUGE milestone is that for about 3 weeks she's been sleeping in her own room in her own big girl bed. She's doing great and comes back to our room at about 4:30am. We have to be up at 5:30am anyway during the week, so that's A-OK!

For Anthony, half way through 2nd grade and he's such a caring young man! He's not as sensitive as he used to be (ie. cry at the drop of a hat). His Religious studies have also increased as well. And he's showing more responsibility in finishing his homework w/o having to be poked and prodded to do so. He has also shown great affinity for basketball. He REALLY enjoys it. He talks about playing bball all the time and he just told us recently while shopping for new shoes for is that he wants to play pro-ball. I'll be happy if he can play in High School! Anthony is also taking more responsibility for looking out for his brother and sister. Just tonight he read Taylor a bedtime story and she loved it!

Jackson...he GREW a few more inches. He participated in his very first Karate tournament and did so well. He's also starting to memorize math facts and is trying to read more sight words and figure out words on his own. He's learned all the letters of the alphabet and their phonetic sounds through "P" thus far in school and so he's working on putting letter blends together. He's still asking to do homework and play educational games on the computer and is REALLY independent now.

I'm sure February will fly right by again. On the 12th it's Grandparents Day at the kid's school and Granny, Granddad and Grandma will be in town for that. They also have another karate tournament coming up at their school and are really looking forward to that. They also have their karate graduation coming up and will be advancing their belt ranks again. Anthony will be a Red/Brown belt and Jackson will a full Yellow belt.

Tony and I completed our 60 hour volunteer commitment at IHS so we are free from lunch monitoring for a while. We also completed our SCRIP commitment for the year but we'll still be purchasing from them to help out the school as well as to keep us on budget. :-)